Iron Age hoard of jewels found

A man using a metal detector has found a hoard of spectacular Iron Age jewellery, a kilo of pure gold worth up to £500,000, scattered across a ploughed field on a farm near Winchester.

British Museum experts regard the jewellery as the most important Iron Age find in decades. A coroner's treasure trove will be held in Winchester today on the gold, possibly a ritual offering made in the last century before the Roman invasion in 43AD. It will then be formally valued, to determine the compensation due to the finder and the land owner. The British Museum will have six months to raise the money to acquire the jewellery.

One of the necklaces is unique, made in the style of Celtic gold and silver torcs - collars found in Ireland, the West Midlands and East Anglia - but using a Roman and Greek technique of interlinked gold wire ring chains. The continental ones are delicate and light, the Winchester one a display of wealth.

The gold was found last Autumn by Kevin Halls, who has spent years investigating a farm near Winchester, with the permission of the land owner, but has never found anything more exciting than a common Roman brooch.

He struck gold on the first day he took his detector into a field he had never tried before.

Jeremy Hills, from the British Museum, said: "We now know what the site was not: not a cemetery, not a Roman villa, nor a barrow or earth work. I hesitate to say druids, but this was a time when lavish gifts were made to the gods in the fields and oak groves."